Note: This will be a very short chapter. It is important to be here, based on timing of history and events and hints to be given and story progression, even if it isn't directly a part of the political war Zelda is having right now.


Riboku's War - Part 1


While many events were conspiring in Qin, even while Majora suffered a brief civil war, and even while Zelda faced Ryo and her mother, it is important to note the world around was by no means inactive, even if only for a brief time.

Following the formal alliance between Qin and Zhao, Zhao martialed its forces and marched east. There, they met the Gorondis.

-Riboku-

Riboku left his tent with the first light. Adorned in furs and leather, he didn't look the part of a Zhao general. Were it not for the sword on his hip one might even think him little more than a scholar associated with the cold. It was an appearance that was equally deceiving as it was true. He was a scholar in his mind, a man of knowledge and understanding and study first and foremost, but this was by no means the limits of his talent.

Behind him, on the plains, stood an army numbering two hundred thousand in total, the equivalent to two armies with subsequence generals and commanders.

Before him, on a nearby mountain, stood an army numbering a mere thirty-thousand in total. Yet he felt it was this numerically inferior force that was the greater. They were not men of flesh and blood and a constant need for sustenance and sleep, they were beings of earth and stone and metal, with alien weapons also of metal. The Gorons did not wield sword and shield, but giant metal gauntlets, hammers, giant shields with horns protruding out to run you through, and engineering. It was the engineering that baffled him the most. They were a simple people, more simple than most, but they had artillery and technology with metal that dwarfed him.

Alongside the Gorons flew a bright lights. Riboku had heard the myths of these Fae hiding away in distant parts of the nations, and he had seen evidence of them in Qin's palace.

"What are we supposed to do with these freaks?" A man wondered nearby.

Riboku chuckled, "Well, probably shouldn't start with calling them 'freaks'."

Riboku entered his tent again briefly, and returned out holding a plate of herbs and some tools to crush the herbs. Nearby was a set of cages. In one cage sat a nearly naked man named Mangoku and in another cage sat the legend Harken Dragmire. Mangoku had a chain around his neck. Harken had chains around every limb.

Seeing Riboku approach, Mangoku stirred and bolted to the end of the cage, stopped, and nuzzled himself against Riboku's outstretched hand. Riboku smiled and scratched the man's hair.

"Good morning, Mangoku. How did you sleep?"

The caged man hummed drunkenly, "I... I stirred briefly... but well."

"Glad to hear it. No dreams?"

Mangoku shook his head.

"Good, Mangoku. Here, this should help."

With that said, Riboku took a nearby water jug, poured Mangoku a cup of water, and added a dose of the herbs. He handed the cup to Mangoku and the caged man took it earnestly and drank it quickly. With the cup finished, Mangoku stumbled away and collapsed on a set of pillows. The man groaned and then turned quiet.

"No matter how much you drug him, it won't change him." Harken Dragmire grumbled.

"Maybe not, but it will ease his pain," Riboku replied. He smiled warmly, "And probably allow you some sleep from his constant screaming."

Riboku poured the rest of the herbs, being ninety-percent of it, into another cup and placed it just within Harken Dragmire's cage. The man glanced down at it with red eyes. He scrunched his nose in distaste. He couldn't budge even if he wanted to with both arms incased in gauntlets tied with chains to the walls and chains about his neck and legs and shoulders.

"Will you behave today?" Riboku wondered. Harken growled slightly. Riboku sighed, "Maybe some news will alleviate you. I have learned that Qin has taken a most peculiar action with what remains of your people." Hearing the name of Qin, Harken's eyes grew wide and attentive. "The Dragmire have been freed of their slavery to be gathered and to the mountains."

Harken grew still. His eyes fell and his shoulders slouched. The chains clanked with his movement.

"Who were your people sent to?" Riboku wondered. "It wouldn't make sense to send a people, with no tie to a land of their own nor skills, to the wilds without someone waiting to receive them."

Guessing his intentions to be hostile, Harken kept his mouth shut.

Riboku frowned, "No matter. I can guess easily enough. The heir had used a mountain tribe to retake her throne and that tribe either would have come from the west or north."

"People live in mountains. What of it?" Harken murmured.

"'What of it' is that these mountain people were not involved in a war beyond them, but now have, and that concerns me. The princess seems intent on expanding the war, bringing in new factions and powers that otherwise would have stayed out of the conflict. It is only a matter of time before they, and your people, are caught up in a war not of their own making to fuel the ambition of a child."

The words troubled Harken, but he said nothing. Riboku nodded, "Or perhaps I just wanted you to have a small comfort, in knowing your people have found some small peace."

"As if you care."

"If you think I do not, then you misunderstand the cages. Do you think Mangoku would be a bigger danger to others or himself, were it not for the bars and herbs?"

Harken's eyes glanced sideways to his fellow prisoner. Mangoku laid on comfortable rugs and pillows in his cage like a dog, but a happy one. He had heard the man's screaming at night, he had heard the name the insane man uttered. He had watched the man beat himself senseless on the metal bars and bite the hand of anyone who came too close who wasn't Riboku.

"Others. He'd kill the first person he came across." Harken answered.

"Then you understand nothing of him. You don't know why he seeks 'Chouhai' so fervently. Odd with how you two are so much alike."

Riboku took a key and opened the cage enough to step in. Stooping down, he grabbed the cup and approached Harken.

"We are nothing alike," Harken denied.

"You are both the product of machinations designed to grind those caught between them into dust. You are both the result of man's view of war and who we are as a species. You are both man that seeks to climb its dirty way out of war by any means necessary, even if it means stepping on others, figuratively and literally. You both sacrificed your souls to survive. You both hold to the hope that the only way to end the war is above, bright, even holy, and so seek to, for perhaps a brief time, evolve past what it is to be human."

Riboku stepped up to Harken and looked down into his red eyes. "The only difference is that Mangoku is what you will become if you fail."

"I will not fail!" Harken growled.

Riboku held out the cup. "Then prove it. Prove you are greater than man."

Harken's eyes drifted between the cup of broth and the man who held it. There was something about the man that scared him. Riboku was unlike any man he had ever known. He was the least war hungry man he had ever known, yet the most talented at it. A man of peace and humility that was burdened by ability he couldn't restrain and insight that haunted him. Riboku was the first man he had met who cared for the consequences of his actions, yet carried things through anyway because he was burdened by something far worse, if only Harken could grasp what that was. He was an enigma in this generation.

Harken opened his mouth and allowed Riboku to serve him something to drink. Riboku was gentle as a nurse, and when it was over, Harken felt his eyes shut as he fell into bliss.

Riboku closed the cage and returned the plates and tools to be washed. With his morning chore finished, he set out alone towards the middle field between the armies. He bore the flag of Zhao on his horse and made sure to move at a slow trot.

In response, the Gorons sent a single 'man' forward. The gigantic being rolled down the hall as a boulder and uncurled itself, stopping, as it neared. Dirt flew in the air and Riboku covered his face from the debris.

"Good morning," Riboku coughed.

The gigantic thing stood to its feet, a full nine-feet tall gorilla looking alien of bone on an exoskeleton surrounding stone. So they had sent a Dragonbone Goron to meet with him.

"We see your armies, and we do not tolerate your presence here." The gigantic stone-gorilla hummed threateningly. "Step closer and we 'whoop' you! The alliance between Zhao and Qin will not be accepted! King Shorlin were our brother tribe and you, and your pretty words, turned brother on brother!"

"Your memory is long but flawed if you think Shorlin still reigns, he has been passed over thrice now and left behind by a young girl named 'Zelda'."

"... then it is her to whom we call hateful and traitor to brother tribe."

"Yes, I'm sure she would love to have yet another title. Among 'Chouhei' and 'Ice Witch'."

"We hear of Chouhei." The Goron hummed. It nodded. "We displeased with Chouhei, but that is war. Zhao brought Chouhei on themselves." The Goron's tone intensified into a growl, "Now you wish for second Chouhei by coming here. No small skirmish will this be, this will be huge whooping!"

"Despite everything, oh, holy Dragonbone, it is war I come for, but not with you."

The Goron raised an eyebrow, confused. "Furred huma bring whooping, bring many huma, yet not want whooping with us?"

"I wish for justice." Riboku explained. "I realize my actions against Qin seem odd, but I assure you it is well founded. I have followed a man closely, one rumored in whispers, whom even my king fears, and now I have drawn him out enough to have seen he lives with my own eyes. Our worse fears are founded. I see a war coming that will end us all in such a tide as to overtake this entire land in blood... or stone."

"Furred huma uses pretty words, but empty words. Speak less empty words."

Riboku chuckled briefly, amused by the Goron, but all the same he cleared his throat and straightened on his horse. He answered, "I have found the Kingslayer."

The Goron stilled. He tilted his head to the side, his shining eyes hidden within the dragonbone blinked at him.

"The Goron are listening. Where did furred huma find Kingslayer Lu Buwei?"